Celebrating the Canon D30 – Happy Birthday!

[Canon Rumors]

May 17th, marked the 24th anniversary of the Canon D30, a camera that deserves not just a place in a museum, but a victory lap around the history of photography. Launched in 2000, the D30 wasn’t just another camera; it was THE camera. It brought professional-grade photography to the masses and brought high-quality digital capture

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[KT]

I think there's a typo in the 3rd paragraph, it reads:
"While I never used the EOS D30, I used its grandchild until it fell apart at the seams, the legendary Canon EOS D30, which had a considerable amount of the EOS D30 DNA in it."

Shouldn't that middle EOS D30 be something else?

 

[DanKearney]

I've got a working D30 sitting on my "Shelf of Honor" right next to my old 10D, 20D and original Rebel. I pull all of them off the shelf every couple of years just to relive the experience!

Cheers,

Dan

 

[Richard-CN]

I think there's a typo in the 3rd paragraph, it reads:
"While I never used the EOS D30, I used its grandchild until it fell apart at the seams, the legendary Canon EOS D30, which had a considerable amount of the EOS D30 DNA in it."

Shouldn't that middle EOS D30 be something else?

yes! 20D

 

[mimbu]

I didn't buy the D30 but instead waited a bit and bought the D60. Kept my EOS3 as I assumed I would still shoot film sometimes. I never shot another role of film. Somehow sold the EOS3 *just* before the film body market completely collapsed.

 

[mimbu]

I've got a working D30 sitting on my "Shelf of Honor" right next to my old 10D, 20D and original Rebel. I pull all of them off the shelf every couple of years just to relive the experience!

Cheers,

Dan

I still have my 20D in a box somewhere, but I sold my original D60 to help fund the 20D purchase back in the day. Later I bought a 5D. Was a good era.

 

[Quackator]

6000 Deutschmark, and I got mine in the first German shipping, November 2000.
Brought it home, charged battery, and when a friend visited, decided to shoot a portrait.
Flash meter battery was dead. Replacement battery was DOA as well.
So from experience I decided to try f8.
Fired, looked at it. Half an f-stop off. Corrected, fired again.

That minute I knew Polaroid would go broke soon, and I would
never again have burnt fingers from all those Polaroid chemicals.

Sold the D30 for 1000 Euro when I bought the D60 a year later.
By that time it had more than paid itself by saved film and
development cost for recurring jobs only, and had opened
many more opportunities I never had before.

Plucked quite a few jobs from people who refused to convert to digital.

Some pictures made with the D30 are still in my portfolio.

From todays perspective the D30 was incredibly sluggish, with a tiny display.
But at the time it was about the best one could buy.

The only real grievance was that TTL flash metering never worked
satisfactory on the D30, it was rarely hit and most of the time miss.

The toughest part was paying 1000 Deutschmark for a 1 GB IBM microdrive.
4.5 MB/sec sustained data rate. Sigh......

 

[WoodyWindy]

I didn't buy the D30 but instead waited a bit and bought the D60. Kept my EOS3 as I assumed I would still shoot film sometimes. I never shot another role of film. Somehow sold the EOS3 *just* before the film body market completely collapsed.

Yeah, I was a D60 initiate as well. The irony is that the D60 (though we didn't know it at the time, other than with the hint of VERY limited availability) was actually just a bridge to the 10D, which brought forward the EF-S mount and Digic processor from the 300D/Digital Rebel, thus setting the pattern for all future Canon consumer SLR cameras.

I can remember breaking a lot of film snobs with the output from the D60.

P.S. My avatar picture is a crop from the D60, shot with the granddaddy EF 75-300 IS and a Tamron 1.4x TC.

 

[Sporgon]

My brother had the ‘son’ if you like, the D60. Still have some files from it; although small output size, at base iso IQ is very good !

 

[MStrathmore]

May 17th, marked the 24th anniversary of the Canon D30, a camera that deserves not just a place in a museum, but a victory lap around the history of photography. Launched in 2000, the D30 wasn’t just another camera; it was THE camera. It brought professional-grade photography to the masses and brought high-quality digital capture

See full article...

I went from the EOS50e to the 10D and never looked back. Those early digitals were game changers! Then it was 20D > 40D > 70D and finally R5. Wish I’d kept the 10D for pure nostalgia!